


It's Weird

by whiteduck6



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Connor coughs up some thirium, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I didn't think it belonged under the graphic violence tag, M/M, Purry AU, and tries to scratch something out of his throat, there's some semi-graphic violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 07:37:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17279792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiteduck6/pseuds/whiteduck6
Summary: The android blushed bright red, and her purring stopped immediately. Of course, she also stopped talking.“It is kind of weird,” Hank said, and Connor felt a muscle twitch in his jaw. “You might want to consider . . . not doing that around humans.”Androids need to purr. Connor won't.





	It's Weird

**Author's Note:**

> Please enjoy! I got DBH for Christmas and finished it in literally 2.5 days, so hopefully I did the characters justice! There's a little bit of violence where Connor coughs up some thirium and tries to scratch something out of his throat, but I didn't think it was violent enough to go in the graphic violence tag. Please read responsibly!

Connor’s chest hurt.

His chest had been hurting for several days now — it felt full and congested, and his every breath was slow and laboured.

Hank still hadn’t noticed anything. 

There wasn’t an off button for the purr modulator, so Connor had been holding it back manually.

Stopping the purr instinct required shutting off his breathing function, which led to his surprise that Hank hadn’t noticed yet. 

Right now, Hank was sitting beside Sumo on the couch, who was sitting beside Connor. Connor had turned off his breathing function 12 minutes and 42 seconds ago, and even though they were sitting in silence, with Hank reading a book and Connor reading articles on the continuing fight for android rights, Hank hadn’t commented on the unnatural silence. 

Connor supposed Sumo’s snoring could have covered the lack of noise, but he would have noticed something.

The ache in his chest was getting disruptive. He hadn’t been able to focus properly in 29 hours due to the discomfort, and he was finding it harder and harder to breathe normally. 

The reason he wasn’t purring was because of an exchange that had happened 8 days ago.

An android had come into the DPD, saying she was a victim of assault. She was dripping blue thirium from a cut above her right eyebrow and her lips were stained with it. 

Her voice was shaky and weak, and her words were backed by a soft, throaty purr. 

“Can you give me a physical description of the guy?” Hank asked as Connor took notes on his computer.

“H-He was six-one, had olive skin—“ she said, but Reed cut her off.

“Can you quit it with that racket?” He drawled. “We’re trying to work here, sweetheart.”

The android blushed bright red, and her purring stopped immediately. Of course, she also stopped talking.

“It is kind of weird,” Hank said, and Connor felt a muscle twitch in his jaw. “You might want to consider . . . not doing that around humans.”

Connor saw tears well up in her eyes, and she nodded meekly, continuing her description as well as she could, her voice drawn into a tiny whisper. 

Later that afternoon, when Hank and Connor were on their lunch break, Hank looked at Connor.

“Hey, Connor, do you make that noise? That the android was making earlier?”

Connor’s stomach clenched and he swallowed his tension and shame.

“No,” he said flatly, making sure to tip his head away from Hank so he couldn’t see his LED flash a sickly yellow.

Since then, he hadn’t purred even once. Not even when Hank was out of the house. 

But he was starting to crack.

“Connor, you alright?” Hank asked out of the blue.

Connor nodded once, sharply, without saying anything. He wasn’t certain he would be able to say a word without his voice crackling into a purr.

“Your LED’s yellow,” Hank said. “What’s up?”

A purr choked its way out of Connor’s throat, and Hank’s eyebrows shot up to the ceiling. Connor managed to disguise it as some sort of cough, standing up quickly and hurrying into the bathroom. 

“Connor?” Hank followed him, but Connor was faster and more agile. He slammed the door behind him and threw the lock shut.

“Connor?” Hank knocked on the door gently. “Are you . . . sick?”

Connor didn’t say anything. The plasticky taste of thirium filled his mouth and he spit a mouthful of it into the sink.

His head swam. Thirium dripped from his lips as he gripped the sides of the sink. 

Hank was knocking on the door harder know. “Connor? Open the door.”

Connor coughed, and a rattling, rough imitation of a purr clawed its way out of his throat. About a quarter of a cup of thirium spilled out of the back of his throat. 

“Connor!” Hank shouted, and the door burst open. Warning messages swam in his vision. 

Hank grabbed his shoulders, pulling Connor away from the sink. Connor collapsed, backing himself into the corner of the bathroom, wedging himself in the corner where the bathtub was. He could feel his throat starting to burn like someone had poured acid down his throat. It was getting harder to breathe. 

“Connor, what’s wrong? Dammit, I’m calling an ambulance—“

If Connor had been in a clearer state of mind, he might have told Hank not to take him to a hospital. The wait times for an android doctor were awful, upwards of four hours for even the most critical injuries. And a human doctor wouldn’t know what to do.

“H-Haa—“ he choked out, sounding like he was trying to talk through a cheese grater. 

“Yeah? You alright, kid?”

Another mouthful of thirium came up, getting all over Connor’s white shirt. Connor scratched at the base of his throat where his purr modulator was. It felt like it was burning through his neck, burning a hole all the way through his body to his thirium pump.

“What’s wrong?” Hank seemed to catch on to what was happening, at least a little, and pulled off Connor’s tie and unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt. Connor was starting to scrape his artificial skin off.

“Wait, wait,” Hank said, pulling his hands away. “Stop, you’re going to hurt yourself!”

 _You’re right,_ Connor thought.

He pulled back his skin, revealing his white, plasticky chassis. 

“Whoa, whoa, kid, try to warn me next time—“ Hank said as Connor jammed his nails under one of the plates and started to pull. His vision was starting to go black around the edges.

“Shit,” Hank muttered, juggling his phone in one hand and Connor’s wrists in the other. He clumsily punched in a number, pressing the phone between his ear and his shoulder. “Markus?”

“No,” Connor rasped, but even the act of talking was excruciating. He heard Markus’ voice, tinny and thin, through the phone—

“ _Hank? What’s wrong?_ ”

—and he blacked out. 

—

When he woke up, his throat didn’t hurt. His chest felt clear for the first time in what seemed like forever.

His automatic breathing was turned on. He felt the warm, solid heat of an android’s hand in his. 

And he was purring. 

He opened his eyes, sitting straight up. He looked around the room, but didn’t see Hank anywhere.

“Hey, you okay?” Markus asked, squeezing his hand. 

“Wh-ere is h-e?” Connor asked, but his voice was shorting out every couple of seconds, leading to a stuttering effect. The low rumble of his purr was still going, deep in his chest, and as much as he hated to admit it, it felt good. It was soothing. It felt familiar.

“He’s in the other room,” Markus said. “As soon as Nicki saw that it was a problem with your purr modulator, she sent him out. I know some humans are still touchy about it, is . . . is Hank—?”

Connor didn’t say anything, just leaned his shoulder against Markus’. 

Markus started purring, too, and the white-noise chorus of their purrs together was the most soothing thing Connor had heard in weeks. 

—

Jericho’s doctor, Nicki, came back once more to make sure the problem was dealt with.

“Just . . . try not to go so long without using it again,” she said as she poked at the base of his throat with long fingers. “It’s just not good for it. And drink some extra thirium when you get home — you lost quite a bit. We gave you some intravenously but you could stand to take some orally.”

“Thank you,” he said as she walked back out of the room.

“If you’re in trouble,” Markus said, cupping Connor’s cheekbone in his wide, flat hand, “You can come here, you know that, right?”

“It’s uncomfortable,” Connor said, “here. I don’t like being stared at.”

“They’re staring at you because they respect you,” Markus said, a soft smile on his lips. He leaned in to give Connor a tender kiss on the mouth. 

“I don’t want you getting hurt. Just be careful.”

“I know.”

Markus pulled him into a lingering hug before finally letting him go. 

Connor made sure to stop his purr before leaving the room. 

Hank was sitting on a worn couch in the “waiting room” that Nicki had set up. His head was in his hands.

“Hank,” Connor said.

“Jesus, kid,” Hank said, wrapping Connor in a tight hug. “Don’t do that again.”

“I was perfectly fine,” Connor said. “I wouldn’t have died.”

“That’s—That’s not the fuckin’ point, Connor,” Hank said, still keeping his arms around Connor. “You were _sick,_ you were in pain, why didn’t you tell me?”

“I wasn’t in pain,” Connor said.

“You’re lying,” Hank said as he finally pulled away. “Your LED turned yellow, and it was red the whole time you were in the bathroom.”

_Shit._

“I—I’ll tell you what happened,” Connor said, “but . . . not here. Outside of Jericho.”

“Alright,” Hank said, and as soon as they had left Jericho’s gate, Connor stopped.

“Wow, you really meant it,” Hank said. “Suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.”

Connor didn’t say that he wanted to be close to the entrance in case he had to run back inside to get away from Hank.

He calculated that there was a 42.87% chance of that happening.

“So, what happened, kid?” Hank asked. “Robot strep?”

“It was . . . a piece of my internal machinery,” he said. “The . . .”

Hank raised his eyebrows, making a “go on” gesture with his hand. 

“The purr modulator.”

Hank looked like someone had just hit him over the head with a brick. “I’m sorry, the _what_?”

“You heard the android who came in on the assault case purr,” Connor said, and the words were thick and choking in his throat like the thirium in the bathroom.

“Oh,” Hank said, looking away.

“It’s vital, unfortunately,” Connor said. “I understand if you don’t want me in your home anymore—“

“What? Why wouldn’t I want you in my house?” 

“When the android purred,” Connor said, feeling ice coat his insides as he explains to Hank why he should kick him out. “You said ‘It is kind of weird. You might want to consider . . . not doing that around humans.’ You don’t like it.”

“Look, just—“ Hank scrubbed at his face with the flat of his hand. “Don’t fuckin’ . . . don’t put words in my mouth. I never said that I didn’t like it. I said she shouldn’t do it around humans because it put a fuckin’ target on her back. It outed her as an android, alright? I don’t have any personal problem with it. Jesus.”

Connor didn’t know what to say to that. His fingers were tingling. He couldn’t quite feel his face.

“You . . . don’t have any personal problem with it.”

“That’s what I said, you parrot,” Hank grumbled. “Just—Jesus, just do whatever you would normally do if you weren’t living with me, alright? It’s not hard.”

Connor felt a spreading warmth inside his chest. His lips pulled up into a smile in the corners. 

“C’mon, kid. Let’s go home.”

Connor let himself purr.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! As always, constructive criticism is welcomed!


End file.
